Nation IN BRIEF : MARYLAND : Denny's Manager in Race Bias Case Fired

Denny's Inc. has fired the manager of an Annapolis restaurant where six black Secret Service agents said a waitress refused to serve them breakfast, the company said. At the same time, the six filed a race discrimination lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. They said they waited 45 minutes for their breakfasts after placing their orders with a Denny's waitress, and finally left hungry. White Secret Service officials who arrived with them were served by the same waitress within 10 minutes of ordering, the lawsuit alleges. The chain of nearly 1,500 restaurants already faces a lawsuit in California based on similar complaints from 32 black customers. The manager was fired for failing to report the complaint to company headquarters, said Coleman Sullivan, a vice president of Spartanburg, S.C.-based TW Services, which owns Denny's. The manager was not identified.